Saturday, 24 May 2014

Advice to Players Part I

The following was originally written as part of the Player's Guide for RCFG. This was my attempt to include a section of advice for players akin to what Gary Gygax included in the back of the 1st Edition Player's Handbook. I have updated it to reflect the Dungeon Crawl Classics game system. I hope that some find some useful bits of advice therein.

I have ever been prone to seek adventure and to investigate
and experiment where wiser men would have left well enough alone.

– Edgar Rice Burroughs, A
Princess of Mars

At its heart, Dungeon Crawl Classicsis a game about exploration and
adventure.This doesn’t mean that the Judge is a “story teller” whose job it is to devise a plot for Player Characters to
follow, nor does it mean that Player Characters are necessarily destined to be
heroes.

Your Judge will
certainly throw out “hooks” that may lead to adventures. Some of these will be red herrings, some will
lead to riches, and some will lead to great adventures. It is up to you, as a player, to set
goals.

Some characters may
indeed grow to become great heroes.
Others might die or become incapacitated through poor judgement or worse
luck. When things go against you, try to
remember that its part of the game. Dungeon Crawl Classics characters are pretty easily made,
and it shouldn’t take long to get back into the action. You can also use henchmen and hirelings to
take part in adventures where your primary character has been killed or
incapacitated.

Preparing for an Adventure

When you are
preparing for a game session, there are some steps you can take to increase
your success, regardless of what sort of adventure is in the offing, or where
it takes place.

Set a Goal: There is
nothing more important than setting a goal for each game session. You don’t have to be bound by this goal – if
circumstances change, your goal can change too.
Having a goal, however, helps to keep things moving during the
game. Anything can be a goal:Locating a new dungeon level, guarding
pilgrims en route to a shrine, finding some specific area or treasure, or
whatever else you can think of. It’s completely okay to have more
than one goal, so long as you know what your primary goal is.Likewise, everyone in a group can have
personal goals, so long as there is some goal that unifies all the characters.

Update Your Character Sheet: This is a
simple expedient – make sure that your character sheet is up-to-date. This is especially true if your character has
gained a level. Did you gain some
treasure you haven’t marked on your sheet yet?
Did you discover some clue as to what that magic gem does? Now is the time to mark it down.

Check Equipment: While you’re
updating your character sheet, check your spells and your equipment. Considering the goals you set, do you have
the equipment that you need? If not,
make a list, know how much you have to spend, and be ready to perform the
necessary transaction(s) within as short a time as possible. With your Judge’s permission, you may be able to
do much of this before the actual game session begins. If you know that you will be
scaling the vast pit of offal known as Filthfall Middens, and you fail to bring
rope and spikes, it is
not simply bad luck if you fall into a deep pool of refuse.

Contact the Other Players: All the
personal preparation in the world is of little avail if you fail to contact the
other players who will be sharing your expedition and ensure that you share a
common goal. Brainstorming sessions are a
perfect time to review clues from previous sessions, make connections between
characters and past events, and to plan how to deal with problems that you know
you will encounter. Talking about the game with the other players will not
increase your chances of success, but it may also increase your excitement –
and hence your fun – in the actual game session.

Death is always beckoning
in Dungeon Crawl Classics. Your job is to avoid answering, as often as
possible!

These tales, of course, are obsolete and ridiculous; because they
come down from very old times.

– H. P. Lovecraft, The
Dunwich Horror

The Role of Intelligence

It is said that
knowledge is power. This is certainly
true in Dungeon Crawl Classics. The more you know about an adventuring area
or an encounter before you commit to it, the better your chances are of
profiting from the game session.

There are many ways
of gaining information in the game. The
simplest is to gather whatever rumours may exist about the adventuring
area. Be ready to spend a few coins to
do this – loosening lips in the inn with a pint or two is a time-honoured
tradition among adventurers. The guards
at the city gates, and watchmen on the night patrols, often see or hear of
unusual happenings. Beggars sometimes
know things that others do not.

Consider also, Who is affected?, and What might they know? For instance, if the Baron hires you to
hunt down an ogre that has been stealing sheep from local farmers, those
farmers might well have seen the creature’s tracks, and know what direction it
was heading in. They might even know where
its lair is!

Sages often know
more, but can be expensive to consult.

Local legends should
not be entirely ignored. At the same
time, beware misinformation. Rumours
that contain a grain of truth might also be misleading. The haunted house might be an abode of
smugglers, rather than of the un-dead.

Divination spells are
probably the most powerful, and most reliable, source of intelligence available
to Dungeon Crawl Classicscharacters. Use them!
Although there are spells and effects that can skew the outcome, and the
answers can sometimes be cryptic, they are included to be useful, and a good Judge will keep this in mind. Even if no PC
can use divination magic, there may well be an NPC witch or oracle in the
milieu. A wizard or elf might be able to gain information from her patron - but there is always a price.

Finally, pay
attention to your surroundings. Few
creatures live in a vacuum. Monsters
leave signs of their existence – “footprints” either figuratively or literally. Even constructed opponents can affect the environment
around them.

If nothing else, the
presence of a victim indicates that something – trap, spell, or monster – was
the victimizer. Listen to your Judge’s
descriptions, and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

"Do you know what you are
asking?" said the Fairy of the Desert, frowning, and looking at him
suspiciously. "Do you want me to
employ my art against the Yellow Dwarf, who is my best friend, and take away
from him a proud princess whom I can but look upon as my rival?"

– Andrew Lang, The Yellow Dwarf

Friends in All Places – High and Low

After your first
successful adventure, you might be tempted to keep your share of the treasure,
or to spend it all on new equipment and upkeep.
Of course, gaining XP means gaining power. And kept gold can be used to better your
equipment, which also means bettering your chances of survival.

Yet I would urge you
to spread some of that wealth around. Consider
giving that emerald as a gift to the Duke.
Pass a few pieces of copper, and even silver, to beggars. Buy a round of drinks at the tavern. If the innkeeper’s daughter is marrying, give
something of value to the happy couple.

These are the actions
that win you friends, and you cannot know ahead of time when you might need
them.

When the beggars warn
you that the militia is coming to arrest you, and the magistrate must take into
account your friendship with the Queen, when the gaoler lets your friends in to
see you, and the gate guards refuse to recognize you as you escape the city,
you will know that your money has been well spent.

If you have never
seen The Godfather (1972), I urge you
to rent it and watch it. The film
explores a microcosm in which politics and the exchange of favours is fully
illuminated. It is, of course, also a
very fine film!

Friendship is a
two-way street. Just as you might find
yourself in need of aid, so might your friends need your help. Many Judges delight in using danger to friends
as adventure hooks. Good Judges also have NPCs
approach your character with offers of friendship and gifts as they gain power
in the milieu – you will have to sift carefully through these offers to
determine who you wish to associate with, and who are nothing more than
sycophants.

But friends are worth
it. Good allies are worth more than gold.

The day seemed to wear away without anopportunity for the
deadly combat, until they halted at a ford abovewhere the village of Unadilla now stands. Here they held a parley, asthe stream was swollen and rapid.

– Hervey Keyes, The Forest King

Giving Them a Good Talking To

Sometimes it is
possible to speak with other creatures, even if they are otherwise
hostile. This is called a parley.
Characters may be able to come to terms with other creatures, accepting
surrender, surrendering, paying or accepting a bribe or ransom, or coming to
terms in a truce.

The key to a
successful parley is to determine what the other creature(s) want.

Sometimes the Judge will
have creatures tell you that they don’t want to talk. Unless such a statement is followed up by an
immediate attack or retreat, you should take it as a clue that you simply
haven’t discovered what they want yet. Many Judges enjoy the
opportunity to role-play that comes with a parley, and reward their players
accordingly. Remember that no creature
has better intelligence about what a dungeon contains than one who lives there.

Remember, too, that
by willing to speak to creatures less powerful than your characters, you are
setting a precedent that might one day save your characters’ lives.

In the meantime, there was no doubt of one thing; they kept an
infamous bad watch. If it had been Silver and his lads that were now creeping
in on them, not a soul would have seen daybreak.

– Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure
Island

Keeping Watch

Keeping watch during
an adventure is an important consideration.
Characters need to rest in order to heal and regain spells, but lying
down to sleep in the middle of a dungeon or the wilds, with no one to watch for
danger, can bring a sudden halt to a promising career.

There are two
important elements to a proper watch:
staying awake and keeping alert.
Your Judge might require a check for either or both. Staying awake usually
requires a Fort or Will save.
DC 5 is average – although if the day’s events were particularly
strenuous, or the characters are close to their last legs, the Judge is justified
in raising this to 10, 15, or even 20.

Remaining alert
requires a Fort save with a similar DC. Failure may result in the watch being surprised regardless of being awake.

House Rule: Awakening

It is a DC 10 Luck check to awaken due to nearby shouting. Newly-awakened characters are
groggy, taking a –2d on the dice chain penalty to all rolls (including attack
rolls, initiative, and saves), as well as a –2 penalty to AC. These penalties are reduced to –1d and –1 to AC with a
successful Fort or Will save (DC 15), and thereafter removed with
another successful Fortitude or Willpower save (DC 10). A character who spends an Action Die trying to wake himself up gains an extra save with a +4 bonus

"Woe to the rash mortal who seeks
to know that of which he should remain ignorant, and to undertake that which
surpasseth his power!"

–
William Beckford, The History of the
Caliph Vathek

Beware the Classic Cons

If something seems
too good to be true, it often is.

Judges delight in
setting up situations where the PCs are faced by classic cons. This has been going on since the first die
was rolled in the first session of the first role-playing game, and you can be
certain that it will go in any game you play.

Some of the “classic”
cons in adventure role playing are:

The
quest where vital information is left out. Especially when it turns out that the PCs are hired by the villain.

"Free
treasure" that turns out to be a monster or a trap. Again, if it seems too good to be true....

Creatures
that look like other, far more dangerous, creatures. Actually, this is a classic con in nature,
too, called mimicry. Likewise, dangerous predators may attempt to pass themselves off as something harmless, the way a crocodile might appear similar to a floating log.

Thank you. It was really intended for my own pet project initially, and should work with any game where there is a sustained and well-thought-out milieu. Moreover, following this advice should encourage the GM to maintain such a milieu.

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